Years of Poems and Spirits

I just finished translating an article for a professor in school (English to Chinese). It is my first academic translation work. Some things worth remembering:
1. I thought I could finish it in a couple of weeks. Instead it took me almost half a year (albeit on and off)!
2. Translation means concentration! I started translating during class. Felt like dashing the first 100 yards in a marathon. Didn’t work, even the class is as boring as ethics or sustainability.
3. Chinese is more concise. The original 29 in English ended up in 22 pages of Chinese. I tried to use the same font size (12) and page size and all charts and tables are scaled the same.
4. Chinese has a lot fewer “tree-like” subclauses. Often I had to break a long English into smaller pieces in Chinese. Felt like Chinese speakers take more breaks and rely more on context to convey meanings.

The subject is about late Emperial China’s demographics. The authors try to undermine prevailing Malthusian description of “mortality crisis” by suggesting the population used infanticide to respond to economic pressure. Not at all convinced, but:
1. Shows the conventional wisdom has strong academic support.
2. Echoing what I have learned from Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence: China was not in decline even during late Qing. Population pressure even brought about agriculture production upgrade that made Lower Yangtze comparable to Europe.
3. I agree with Kent G’s criticism: too much speculation too little hard evidence. I still remember his excitement during class.

Just a collection of some old favorites and new interpretations:

“Ah, there you go; ‘93! I was expecting that word. A cloud had been forming for the space of fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen hundred years it burst. You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial.”
(满天乌云密布了一千五百年。过了十五个世纪之后，乌云散了，而您却要加罪于雷霆)
—Chapter X. The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light, Les Miserables
I read it over and again during the summer of 89. Now I realize it has more to do with the theme of enlightenment, not “democracy”. Still very powerful however you read it though.

Thus at Time’s humming loom it’s my hand that prepares,
The robe ever-living the Deity wears.
—Spirit, Faust. Part I, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One of the most intriguing lines in Faust. The first Chinese version I read was translated by GMR, I think.

中学时读《楚辞》，不知所云：除去不认识的字或认识不会念的字，剩下认得的也已读不通了。只记得一些上口的，“若有人兮山之阿,被薜荔兮带女萝”。。。前一段看到余秋雨以当代散文翻写的《离骚》，特别欣赏。从网上下载至此。

NYT just identified the prostitute Spitzer hired that night. It turns out she was from a broken family, abused drugs, went homeless at times, and moved to NYC hoping to launch a singing career. She is pretty but neither exotic nor classic. Her hands stand out as anti-climatic. Her boss sent her out for $1000 an hour but she couldn’t pay for the rent on her own.

That is all I know about her. But what struck me the most was her own words. Before going to see Spitzer, she was alerted that he might want to do something “unsafe”. Her reply was nonchalant yet embued with I-am-in-control kind of confidence, “Listen dude, you really want the sex?” Today, however, when interviewed by NYT report at the court house, she said only, “I don’t want to be remembered as a monster”.

I don’t know whether I am in a position to feel sorry for her. Nor do I know whether that is what she is looking for. She is only 22 and still calls home when she is in trouble. But her story made me feel like living in a Kafka-nesque world.

Why does NYT has to parade her in front of the public? Because she ruined so much promise for NYT and what it stands for? What recourse does she have to defend herself or even “opt out of the game”? She begs not to be remembered as a monster, but how she’s perceived is already out of her control.

I thought about posting comments on NYT online or even write to their editors. But then again, how different am I from “Kristen” in front of the machine that has no face, no name yet is omnipresent? If NYT doesn’t pick her out, someone else might. All in the name of public’s right to know but actually is out of the public’s desire to know. I feel a chill to the bone.